Tag: piano

Toshifumi Hinata – Sarah’s Crime, 1985

Guest post by Ian Hinton-Smith

Difficult to put into words. How to describe Sarah’s Crime? Smooth, evocative, dreamy, and deeply romantic. Perfect solo listening. Much like Soichiro Suzuki of World Standard on later albums like Canon, I’d dub Toshifumi Hinata a master of thoughtful, gentle composition.

While there’s very little information available about his background, it’s known that Hinata spent time in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Surrey, South of England. Lazy English Sundays have certainly been captured on “Premonition.” You can almost hear his cream tea and plate of buttered scones rattling on the piano as he plays, looking out of a window onto the lawn. “Pavement,” with its pastoral field recordings, rain, thunder, and church bells, might also tell of his time in Surrey. Like those two tracks, so the rest of Sarah’s Crime has a cinematic quality that evokes a feeling, a place, even a storyline.

“Boardwalk” is a jazzy little moocher: sandy toes, seagulls in the South of France, and a sweet melodica/accordian duet. More than a hint of Pink Floyd’s “St. Tropez” but with a winking ballroom grandeur. The remarkable opening title track instantly conjures up a yacht slipping towards the horizon as the credits roll. Swells of violin filling the sails, synth pads rolling in and out like ocean waves, with perfectly prim drum machine drama. Like much of the record, it’s unabashedly romantic, but stops just short of saccharine. Tasteful as ever.

“Memories” feels like a take on the Korgis’ “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime.” Plaintive piano chords, reverb-drenched harmonica, and a touch of Angelo Badalementi mystery transport you to a swaying cornfield. The standout track, however, which is alone worth the price of admission, is “Chaconne.” Vaporous whisps of slow curving chords pinned down by a Philip Glass/John Carpenter style repetitive chiming bell loop. Just as you’re drifting away on it (I often have this on my sleep playlists), it spikes up a notch, almost into drama, but the heartrate remains relaxed and sleep is only moments away. I adore this track. Four years of hearing it nearly every night and I never tire of it.

Something worth mentioning about this album, and Hinata’s style generally, is that his use of melody and phrasing over sublime chord patterns is like having someone reading aloud to you. Chord changes set up a scene while melodies conjure up slow but meaningful narratives. If An Artist Of The Floating World is ever made into a movie, the soundtrack is ready to go.

Finally, I’ll leave this review, as Hinata does, on closing track “Pentimento” with a question mark: does a failed romance amount to nothing? Or does the second half, where happy memories appear to come drifting back in passionate swells mean that it was worth it even if it’s over? Sit by the window, listen, and try to figure it out. I’m still trying. It’s alright not knowing sometimes.

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[Mix for LYL Radio] The Oddlogs Episode 4

I made a two hour guest mix of long-form instrumentals for Lyon/Paris based online radio station LYL Radio. The Oddlogs is their series of guest sets with different music bloggers from around the world, and their lineup has been excellent thus far so I’m honored to be in such good company. I wanted to take advantage of the long time slot to use lengthier, more meditative tracks that are less synth-heavy and more acoustic-centric, with (almost) no vocals. There’s also a lot of excellent natural reverb and room tone in here. In the spirit of the music, I recorded my talkback segments in my bathroom for added reverb, and made my best attempt at ASMR-esque speaking. For what it’s worth, I think it makes a solid snow soundtrack. If you like the mix, there’s an mp3 version without my speaking in it which you can download here. Enjoy!

Tracklist:
1. Joanna Brouk – Winter Chimes
2. Raul Lovisoni – Amon Ra
3. Daniel Lentz – Lascaux
4. Daniel Schmidt & the Berkeley Gamelan – Faint Impressions
5. Daniel Kobialka – Orbital Mystery
6. David Casper -Tantra-La
7. Ernest Hood – From The Bluff (Excerpt)
8. Roberto Mazza – Artigli Arguti
9. Vincenzo Zitello – Nembo Verso Nord
10. Pandit Ram Narayan – Rāga Kirvani
11. Seigén Ono – Suimen-Jo Niwa
12. Joel Andrews – The Violet Flame, Part 2 (Excerpt)
13. Stuart Dempster – Secret Currents

Seigén Ono – Seigén, 1984

Ouch, so beautiful. Seigén Ono’s debut album was released when he was 26 years old, though he had already worked with David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and went on to become one of Japan’s most sought-after producers and engineers. I feel as if this record has been steadily opening up for me over the past year, finally cracking wide during (surprise surprise) a headphones listen. It might feel a bit austere at first, and there are definitely a few explicit nods to western minimalism, but it’s deceptively generous, even lush. Incisive modern classical, a few bits of very Japanese smooth jazz, and an avant-garde sensibility. Featuring some songwriting from Yasuaki Shimizu and a slew of razor-sharp session musicians. An incredible network of moody textures, all perfectly atmospheric. Part of the perennial favorite Music Interior series, the entirety of which will probably be posted here eventually, realistically. The liner notes call this “a perfect production of beauty,” and the statement doesn’t even feel hyperbolic.

Note that this includes two additional tracks but not the two bonus tracks from the recent reissue, which doesn’t seem to be readily available for sale anymore, though they’re well worth it if you find a copy.

Dorothy Carter – Waillee Waillee, 1978

Guest post by Peter Harkawik

I was recently digging through sidebars on musical sculpture, when I stumbled upon two enchanting private press albums by the late Dorothy Carter—mystic, free spirit, wizard of the strings. According to a tribute by her bandmates The Mediæval Bæbes, Carter was born in New York in 1935, studied at Bard and the Guildhall School of Music, and in her later years toured Europe, playing festivals, cabaret, and at least once, a concert in a cemetery. She reportedly lived in a drafty loft in New Orleans, where she collected giant zithers, hosted salons, and played her brand of medieval folk music wherever she could. By another account, she “lived in a commune, worked on a Mississippi steam boat as a ships boy, raised two kids and ran away to a Mexican cloister with an anarchistic priest.”

Somewhat more secular than her 1976 debut Troubador, Waillee Waillee alternates between darkly enigmatic, inward melodies, and jaunty, exuberant hymns. Songs like “Along the River,” while populated with some familiar folk imagery—woodland creatures, mollusks, and rosemary bushes—are absent of the studio chicanery that so often accompanies it. Flutes, maracas, and tambura, some played by new age pioneer and instrument-builder Constance Demby, join Carter’s expert plucking and hammering to great effect. Her vocals might draw comparisons to Karen Dalton, Bridget St John, or perhaps Linda Perhacs, but here, in the service of her wistful paeans to nature, they stand alone. On the album’s haunting title track, Carter croons, “When will my love return to me?” with uncomplicated sentimentality, like a forlorn lover trapped in a block of ice. “Dulcimer Medley” and “Celtic Medley” are sprightly instrumental ballads that would not be out of place in a scene from Barry Lyndon.

For me, the standout on this album is “Summer Rhapsody.” Seven minutes long, expansive and majestic, it begins with a rumble like a jet engine, building to a crescendo of feverish dulcimer. It’s here too that the recording really sparkles, as though the dulcimer’s harsh textures are pushing the tape to its very limits. While it might sound like a hurdy-gurdy, the corpulent drone is produced by a steel cello, an instrument resembling the sail on a medieval cog. Here we see the fruits of Carter’s decades-long collaboration with artist Robert Rutman, who, like Walter Smetak, Ellen Fullman, and others, pioneered a hybrid art that was neither purely aesthetic nor musical. It was with his group the Central Maine Power Music Company, formed in Skowhegan in 1970, that Carter first toured, playing unconventional shows in New England planetariums, sculpture gardens, and museums.

Part of what’s so incredible about Waillee Waillee is that as much as it is a psych-folk record, it is also completely at home with the experiments of Terry Riley, Charlemagne Palestine, Yoshi Wada, Pauline Oliveros and Laraaji. Carter was a fascinating figure whose devotion to her chosen instruments was legendary. I hope you enjoy this record as much as I do.

David Casper – Tantra-La, 1982

Snow day favorite from private issue new age icon David Casper. Drawn-out, weightless instrumentation: piano, glass harmonica, kalimba, sheng, xiao, cello, upright bass, oboe, flute, ocarina, pennywhistle, gong, and synth–but never particularly busy, in spite of all that. Enjoy!

Daniel Lentz – On The Leopard Altar, 1984

Such a cool record. This was Daniel Lentz’s first full-length release (though he had already been working on ambitious large-scale compositions and performance pieces for 20 years by then) and was one of the seven releases on the short-lived Icon Records. Though Lentz’s background seats him pretty squarely in the realms of academia, On The Leopard Altar avoids much of the dryness that I associate with minimalism–it’s more generous, unafraid to lean into pop sensibility and pleasure. (Fittingly, he went on to make two records with Harold Budd.) “Lascaux” is a gorgeous nine minutes of 25 tuned wine glasses resonating in and out, with nothing added but reverb, and it acts as a drone meditation piece, with glasses serving as both shruti box and chimes. “Requiem” attempts to capture the experience of hearing a lone singer in a large, empty cathedral, with big church bell tolls, rolling keyboard chimes, a vocalist bathed in Julee Cruise-esque reverb, and a few pretty incredible overtone moments. The gorgeous title track is very warm, present vocals delivered with a choir boy-esque straight tone purity, over rolling keyboards and (I think) more wine glasses. On “Is It Love” and “Wolf Is Dead…” we hear more typically minimalist long-form weaving of gamelan-inspired rhythmic pulses in the vein of Reich and friends, and vowel-based vocal pulsing in the vein of Monk and friends, but even these are structured in ways that suggest a pop sensibility.

Wally Badarou – Colors Of Silence, 2001

I shared Badarou’s Echoes a while ago, and will probably share Words of a Mountain at some point, but I think his most recent solo release tends to get overlooked. Though the title pegs it as yoga music, there’s very little conventional new age to be found here–it feels more like the hotel lobby music of my dreams. I’ve never used it as a yoga accompaniment, but I have done a lot of deep cleaning with it, and I would imagine this would be great driving music. Alternately playful, tropical, nostalgic, reggae-tinged, meditative, cinematic, and as one would expect, endlessly smooth. Badarou himself seems to be conflicted about the work, citing poor promotion and “intimate” distribution. He disavowed it as an instrumental record, instead calling it a compilation of high-quality demos that were put together quickly for a friend’s project. Nobody needs me to say that Badarou is a genius; this is just a reminder that his wizardry holds fast even under unideal circumstance. (If you also listened to CFCF’s Colours of Life a gazillion times, you’ll love this–the sonic palettes and titles are so akin that I suspect it’s a direct nod.)

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 8

I made the first version of this mix two years ago as I was starting to see the continuity in a lot of the music I was gravitating towards, though I didn’t have much vocabulary for it at the time. Since then I’ve started to think of it as intimate music (not the same thing as music for intimacy)—it’s music that conveys a closeness to the musician and an awareness of the space that the musician occupied. It’s often acoustic, doesn’t see much post-production, and has a very present room tone. It’s warm and sometimes a bit rough. It leans towards baroque folk, strings, and piano. None of these are hard and fast rules though—Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods breaks most of them and is still peak intimate music. It’s more of a feeling than a genre.

I was really happy with the original mix, and since I published it fairly early on I don’t know if it got much eartime, so I was excited to rework and extend it a bit. I think of it as a fireplace soundtrack, although any quiet nighttime indoor space seems like a safe bet. I hope you have a moment with it. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version here.

Tracklist:
1. The Rising Storm – Frozen Laughter
2. The Durutti Column – Sleep Will Come
3. Bridget St John – Many Happy Returns
4. Harold Budd – Albion Farewell (Homage to Delius, for Gavin Bryars)
5. Connie Converse – There is a Vine
6. Woo – Taizee (Traditional)
7. Unknown – Pumi Song
8. Robbie Basho – Variations On Easter
9. Clara Rockmore – The Swan (Saint-Saëns)
10. Lewis – Like To See You Again
11. Carlos Maria Trindade – Plan
12. Patti Page – The Tennessee Waltz
13. Raul Lovisoni – Hula Om (Excerpt)
14. Kate Bush – Something Like A Song (Home Demo 1974)
15. Yasuaki Shimizu – Suite No. 2: Prélude (Bach)
16. Donnie & Joe Emerson – Love Is
17. Rosa Ponselle – The Nightingale and the Rose (Rimsky-Korsakov)
18. Henri Texier – Quand Tout S’arrête
19. Molly Drake – I Remember
20. Virginia Astley – Sanctus
21. Arthur Russell – A Sudden Chill

Vincenzo Zitello – Et Vice Versa, 1988

Hope you want more harp, because that’s where I’m at for the time being. Vincenzo Zitello tends to get tossed around with the Italian minimalists, but this is a little too swirly and baroque for me to consider true minimalism–his interest in Celtic music means that he often turns up on new age compilations. These were compositions written specifically for the Celtic harp, and like many of my other favorite harp records, there’s lots of room tone. Ideal winter record. (If anyone has a rip of his 1986 tape Frammenti D’Aura Amorosa, I’d really love a copy!)

Raul Lovisoni & Francesco Messina – Prati Bagnati Del Monte Analogo, 1979

Such a special record. Split between Raul Lovisoni, whose work I don’t know too much about, and Francesco Messina (there’s a track from his very strange and very good Medio Occidentale on this mix). The A-side is a 24 minute long synthesizer bath, with swaths of meandering piano on top (there’s definitely something harp-like happening too, though it’s not listed in the credits). It sounds like a hot spring in the wintertime, with synth pads acting as clouds of rising steam. The B side is two ~10 minute tracks by Lovisoni, both very different from the A-side and from each other. “Hula Om” feels markedly more “indoors” than Messina’s cosmic title track. It’s just a repeating harp motif, though at a few points you can hear bird sounds filtering through a window, something being dropped in the next room, clothing shifting around, and the creak of somebody’s knees, all of which feel fitting given the raw and warm spatial textures that bring three seemingly disparate tracks together. The closer, “Amon Ra,” also a Lovisoni composition, is mostly clear, ringing overtones courtesy of a crystallophone, with some sparse patches of vocal chanting. The embrace of truthful, unedited sound, both across the synthetic landscape of the A-side and the acoustic sparsity of the B-side, makes Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo feel like a diary or a photo album: these are bare bones, beautiful songs as they happened, where they happened, and that’s more than enough.